Personal Accomplishments:
This week, Anirud and I spoke about the requirements for a sensing matrix. I did some further work here after discussing project dimensions with Luca to find out how many sensors will create a good balance between reliability and workload.
After doing some research on viable ICs, I settled on using either 4051 (8to1) or 4067 (16to1) analog switches to multiplex the dozens of sensor signals into 16 or fewer analog signals (the limit for an Arduino Mega). Below are some sketches of how we expect the sensing matrix to be connected in the final project – however, using a custom PCB is certainly a stretch goal desired for the final project.
Project Schedule:
As with last week, we are keeping on track with our desired schedule and maintaining plenty of slack to utilize later in the project. However, as we end the design phase of our project, I expect progress to slow down due to component acquisition.
Next Week’s Goals:
Next week we need to do some final testing on the Hall-Effect sensors to better determine range and place orders for sensors and analog switch ICs (likely tomorrow). I hope to have a finalized design for the matrix and PCB design so we can start matrix assembly as soon as possible.